Why Bother? America Knows Best.

What Is the Question Im I am Answering?

What Do Lucy’s observations tell us about the relationship between the United States and The West Indian country she comes from? What power relationship are involved and how do they play out?

         Lucy’s initial reaction to the United states States obviously wasn’t a good one. She slept in a room designed to fit a maid, a room unlike the one she had back home. The room she was given was a maid's room. The way she describes the room it seems as if she's an item or "cargo" that was shipped. She then goes on to express how she feels by saying "But I was not cargo. I was only an unhappy young women living in a maid's room, and I was not even the maid. I was the young girl who watches over the children and goes to school at night." Not only is this an early sign of the power system set up in the household, but it begins to show how her ideology of this new lifestyle is being shattered. She begins to develop a system, where she wakes up in the morning, takes the girls to school, picks them up, feeds them food, reads to them then puts them to sleep before she is off to her classes. She sits at the dinner table with the family that so kindly invited her into their home and has dinner. From the outside looking in it seems simple enough I'm sure, but if ou analize teh you analyze the situation, actually observe the exchange its it is a clear sign of power. She tries to share a dream with them, a dream which to her symbolizes how close this foreign family as has become to her. "When I finished, they both fell silent. Then they looked at me and Mariah cleared her throat, but it was obvious her throat did not need clearing at all. . ." Lucy said ". . .Lewis made a noise and said Poor, poor Visitor..." (Kincaid 15) Instead of understanding what she was trying to tell her them, they made fun of her, dismissed her statement. This has become the American way. When American's do not understand or are faced with the unknown, its people act as if they are superior. They set up systems of power, to demonstrate their importance and dismissing the opinions and values of all other cultures. Many ask why is this? Simple. Because of Fear. Americans fear the unknown, the possible lose loss of power that comes with succumbing to another way other then the "American way".